THE CIVIL SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 71, 21 September 1936, Page 8

THE CIVIL SERVICE

BRITISH HONOUR CODE

PRINCIPLES STATED

This is the British Civil Service Code of Honour —drawn up by high officials of the service and comprising principles regulating the conduct of civil servants—which was referred to and quoted in the sensational report resulOing in the dismissal of Sir Christopher Bullock, Permanent Secretary to the Air Ministry. - His Majesty's Civil Service, unlike other great .professions, is not and cannot in the nature of things be an autonomous profession. In common with the Royal Navy, the Army, and the Koyal Air Force, it must always be subject to the rules and regulations laid down for its guidance by his Majesty's Government, says the "Daily Mail." This written code is, in the case of the Civil Service, to be found not only in the statutes, but also in Orders in Council, Treasury Circulars, and other directions which may from time to time be promulgated; but over and above these the Civil Service, like every other profession, has its unwritten code of ethics and conduct for which the most effective sanction lies in the public opinion of the Service itself, and it is upon the maintenance of a sound and healthy public opinion within the Service that its value and efficiency chiefly depend. UNDIVIDED^ ALLEGIANCE. The first duty of a civil servant is to give his undivided allegiance to the State at all times and on all occasions when the State has a claim upon his services. With his private activities the State is in general not concerned, so long' as his conduct therein is not such as to bring discredit upon the Service of which he is a member. But to say ,that he is not to subordinate^ his duty to his private interests, nor to make use of his official position to further those interests, is to say no more than that he must behave with common honesty. The Service exacts from itself a higher standard, because it recognises that the State is entitled to demand that its servants shall not only be honest in fact, butjjeyond the reach of suspicion of dishoftesy. ; It was laid down by one of his Majesty's Judges in a case some few years ago that it was not merely of some importance, but of fundamental importance, that in a Court of law justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done; which we take to mean that public confidence in the administration of justice would be shaken if the least suspicion, however ill-founded, were allowed to arise that the course of legal proceedings could in any way be influenced by improper motives. . . ■" We apply without hesitation ■an analogous rule to other branches of the Public Service. A civil servant is not to subordinate his duty to his private interests; but neither is he to put himself in a position where his duty and his interests conflict. He is not to make use of his official position to further those interests; but neither is he so to order his private affairs as to allow the suspicion to arise that a trust has been abused or a confidence betrayed. THE SUREST GUIDE. These obligations are, we do not doubt, universally recognised throughout the whole of the Service; if it were otherwise, its public credit would be diminished and its usefulness to the State impaired. We content ourselves with laying down these general principles, which we do not seek to elaborate into any detailed code, if only for the reason that their application must necessarily vary according to "the position, the Department, and the work of the civil servant concerned. Practical rules for the guidance of social conduct depend also as much upon the instinct and perception of the individual as upon casWron formulas; and the surest guide will, we hope, always be found in the nice and jealous honour of civil servants themselves. .. The public expects from them a standard of integrity and conduct not only inflexible but fastidious, and has not been disappointed in the past; We are confident that we are expressing the view of the Service when we say that the public have a right to expect that standard, and that it is the duty of the Service to see that the expectation is fulfilled. :